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The Politics of Phrenology |
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Written by Staff Writer
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May 06, 2007 at 03:08 PM |
Phrenology was a medical school of thought concerning the brain, and how it might be understood as a physical representation of the human mind. It was most prominent in Edinburgh in the early 19th century, because Edinburgh was politically sympathetic to Whig ideas, and phrenology seemed to support those ideas.
There are 4 fundamental tenets of phrenology - 1; The mind is the brain, 2; The brain is a collection of organs, each representing an attribute of the mind, 3; The size of each organ in the brain represented the dominance of the corresponding attribute in the whole makeup of the personality and 4; The size of each organ, and thus the dominance of each attribute, is represented in the shape of the skull.
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The credibility of phrenology was put under question when it was discovered that, upon actual inspection of the shape of the brain, the frontal sinus rarely represented the shape of the brain in that area. The structure of the cerebral cortex itself also provoked intense scientific debate, because it was very difficult to know whether this convoluted, wrinkled surface was a single complicated organ, or many different organs combined.
Phrenology’s view of the way the brain was attached to the nervous system had profound philosophical implications. Proponents of phrenology, such as Spurzheim, viewed the nervous system as feeding into the cerebellum from below, thus suggesting that knowledge is gained from the senses. Opponents, such as John Gordon, proposed that the system worked the other way round, with the cerebellum branching down from above - implying innate knowledge.
Spurzheim was summoned to visit Edinburgh by Whig supporters because the idea of all knowledge being gained from outside, though the senses, was in keeping with Whig ideology : that any man, regardless of the class he was born into, could acquire knowledge and experience enough to improve his status and influence. This was in direct opposition to the aristocracy’s concept of innate knowledge and superiority through birth, and thus the aristocratic Tories supported researchers such as John Gordon.
In order to understand the nature of the phrenological debate during this period, one has to view it in the context of the Whig-Tory conflict. The anatomical research on both sides of the conflict was, above all, driven and stimulated by the very conflict itself. How an individual viewed the brain between 1815 and 1830 was dominated by their political loyalties. This is best shown by the differences in contemporary illustrations of the brain - anatomists supported by the Tories showed the brain as a complex whole, while Whig phrenologists emphasised the divides expected in a phrenological understanding of the brain. |
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Last Updated ( May 06, 2007 at 03:24 PM )
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